Mature sciences have been long been characterized in terms of the "successfulness," "reliability" or "trustworthiness" of their theoretical, experimental or technical accomplishments. Today many philosophers of science talk of "robustness," often without specifying in a precise way the meaning of this term. This lack of clarity is the cause of frequent misunderstandings, since all these notions, and that of robustness in particular, are connected to fundamental issues, which concern nothing less than the very nature of science and its specificity with respect to other human practices, the...